Promote Diplomacy with Iran
Give Diplomacy a Chance
The Iran nuclear agreement has made the world a safer place. Thanks to a years of painstaking negotiations in pursuit of a peaceful means of resolving concerns over Iran’s nuclear program, the world can rest assured that all of Iran’s potential pathways to obtaining nuclear weapons remain blocked.
Peace Action was one of the first groups to start actively lobbying Congress in support of diplomacy with Iran. Once President Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani agreed to begin formal negotiations with other world leaders to relieve sanctions on Iran in exchange for strict limits to its nuclear program, we started our “Talks or War” campaign to highlight the choices before us. We worked tirelessly to protect the negotiations from its would-be saboteurs in Congress who were working to pass new sanctions on Iran that would have derailed the talks.
After the 5 permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) and Iran signed the Iran agreement on July 14, 2015, Peace Action worked with a broad coalition on the “60 Days to Stop a War” campaign. Under a law passed shortly before the agreement was signed, Congress had 60 days to review the agreement before voting on it, so our task was to build enough support in Congress for the agreement to move forward. Ultimately, the combined political power of our coalition’s dedicated grassroots membership won the day. With thousands of calls, emails and letters to Congress, large crowds of constituents showing up to town halls to voice their support for diplomacy, and large protests against members of Congress who came out against the deal, concerned citizens like you prevented what would have been a disastrous war. Since its successful implementation in January 2016, the Iran agreement has been working exactly as intended.
Unfortunately, President Trump has recklessly withdrawn the U.S. from the agreement, which could lead to its complete collapse and put the U.S. back on a path to war. With Trump’s new war cabinet, including long-time advocates for war with Iran like national security advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran agreement could be designed to provoke a response from Iran that the administration could use to build a case for war. Our job now is to do what we can to salvage the Iran nuclear agreement, and sound the alarm about the Trump administration’s possible pursuit of another disastrous war of choice in the Middle East.